Almost February

Timbuktu is no longer a faraway place from childhood.Nor is Mongolia, where people steal dinosaur bones from the ground.It’s not possible to stay intact forever.It is possible to carry exotic species in your luggage,to hide a skull under your cap, to imagine sweaty high-schoolfootball players in Kansas when looking down from an airplane.It’s possible to place a copper weather vane of a rooster on the roof,to wait a long time for it to turn green.

On eBay, they are auctioning the old coats of Cher.Authenticity guaranteed. I almost bought a coat without sleeves for $50.The ad said Cher probably had intentions to alter it.We have more choices than we think is something I read.A neurology student named Claire told me There are many Claires.One replaces oneself, cellularly. How many Claires?The older they got in the documentary,the more lies they told, because they had more people to protect.

A guy I don’t like at work brought his baby in and the baby was perfect,with spiky hair, I wanted to hold him but the guy didn’t like me either.There should be a center in town where people can hold infants.The hospital stayed open in Timbuktu, but the doctorshad to minister to so much horror—they had to reattach people to their hands.

You cannot be anyone else, though you buy a new jacket, or Cher’s old one.My grandmother wanted to be buried with everything she owned,just in case. Just in case, I save old coffees in the refrigerator.I love strangers, whom I recognize as people I knew in grade school—with all their winter accoutrements and little objects for living.My pencil case was always full of cracker crumbs.Nobody recognized me as the Buddha.